The present invention relates to the method of fixation of hazardous waste and to products that can be made therefrom.
Large amounts of hazardous wastes are generated by industrial and municipal procedures that require disposal, such as incinerator wastes. Such wastes are hazardous primarily because they contain heavy metals and salts thereof which are quite toxic. Presently, such wastes are placed into landfill disposal sites. Such has not proven to be desirable due to leaching from such sites into the subsoil, into water supplies, and, in some instances, the large costs involved in preparing such sites to prevent such leaking and contamination of water tables.
Further, incinerators are increasingly used as means of handling garbage and other wastes by municipalities and industries thereby increasing the amount of hazardous waste to be disposed thereby greatly increasing the costs due to the need to find additional disposal sites and in terms of preparing sites for storage of the same. This is particularly true as more and more communities are finding that the areas available for waste disposal, particularly hazardous waste disposal, are becoming more and more limited.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,153 discloses a highly suitable method for disposal of hazardous waste, but the amount of waste that can be so treated and immobilized by the invention set forth therein is quite limited, comprising only up to ten or so percent by way of the total weight of the composition formed to immobilize the waste.